Father Champlin’s book,
A Catholic Perspective on ‘The Purpose Driven Life’, was written out of the author’s experience of conducting retreats based on the Rev. Rick Warren’s best-selling book, which is a guide to a 40-day “spiritual journey.”
Rev. Warren believes that our purposes in life are to please God, to be part of God’s family, to become Christ-like, to serve God and others, and to spread God’s message as found in the Bible.
Father Champlin’s book applies official church teachings to subjects in Rev. Warren’s text, pointing out differences, similarities and further insights into Catholic tradition and practice. The points of disagreement are few: differences in biblical texts, questioning the Bible as the sole source without the wisdom of tradition, discussing the sacraments as purely symbolic, and formal baptism as a requisite for entering heaven. Generally, most of the differences seem to be questions of terminology.
